By Shishir Arya / The Times of India

Nagpur: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s (RSS) mukhya pracharak Sunil Ambekar hit out at the concept of Dalit-Muslim unity. He said the backward class must not get disillusioned with such ideas. Adopting or allying with any other religion cannot be a solution to the discrimination due to the caste system within Hinduism. Though such attempts are being made, said Ambekar.

Some are comparing the condition of backward classes with campaigns like ‘Black Lives Matter’. Differences due to the caste system are not as worse as the racial discrimination against blacks in America. The RSS is constantly working to bring the entire Hindu community together, irrespective of the caste, he said.

The senior RSS functionary was speaking at the Manoramabai Mundle memorial lecture series and awards for social work organized by Dharampeth Shikshan Sanstha on Friday.
Members of a nomadic caste were also felicitated during the function. Ambekar’s stress was that solutions to problems in Hindu religion should come from within only. “There have been attempts to bring the Hindu society together shedding all the biases of caste since historical times,” he said.

He cited the example of Jogendra Mandal from Bengal, the leader who supported Pakistan and later became the country’s first law minister.
There were two major Dalit leaders during those times, one was Dr Babaseheb Ambedkar and the other was Mandal from Bengal. Mandal chose Paksitan and became the law minister there, but had to finally flee to India, he said in a reference to Dalit-Muslim alliance. Ambedkar was in India on the other hand, said Ambekar.

He said even Marxists and Maoists have brought in violence within the community in the name of class struggle. Though it cannot be the solution.

“When Dr Ambedkar attended the Buddhist conventon in November 1956, he said Dalits have peaceful means of the Buddhist religion and there is no place for violence,” said Ambekar.

“Veer Sawarkar had started an all Hindu canteen. It means a Hindu of any caste could eat there. Sawarkar also attended only those Ganesh Mandals where entry was not barred by caste. All this may sound so simple now but it was not those days,” he said.

This article first appeared on timesofindia.indiatimes.com